An article in Government Technology notes that:

Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., established the Governor’s Commission on the Administration of Elections, a bipartisan commission to study and make recommendations to improve voting procedures in Maryland’s local, state and federal elections. The Commission will submit recommendations to the Governor in January 2006.

“The citizens of Maryland deserve a safe, fair and accurate election system,” said Governor Ehrlich. “This eminently qualified, bipartisan commission can help strike an important balance between voter access and voter integrity in Maryland elections. I look forward to reviewing their recommendations in January and working with the General Assembly to provide Marylanders the most reliable election system in the nation.”

The Commission will focus on best practices, legislation and regulatory efforts in five key areas: early voting, absentee voting, provisional voting, and voter identification and voter verification systems. The Commission will also review election reform reports published by other states, commissions and task forces, including the recently released Carter-Baker Commission’s election reform report.

One can only imagine that, after failing to gain partisan control over the state’s election board, this is Ehrlich’s way of attempting to pass election reforms that benefit his view of the election world. Given that Maryland has one of the most innovative and expert election directors in the country, one has to wonder what the commission will produce that could not be produced by the existing board.